Tài gōng yīn fú jīng 太公陰符經
The Tàigōng’s YīnFú Scripture
attributed to 姜太公 (Jiāng Tàigōng = Lǚ Shàng 呂尚, the Western-Zhōu founder-strategist); transmission narrated in the anonymous self-preface
A short scripture in the genre of the Yīn fú jīng (cf. KR5i0031–KR5i0033) — but distinguished from that scripture by its attribution to Jiāng Tàigōng rather than to the Yellow Emperor, and by its more pronounced military-strategic register. Self-described as “the secret of the sage’s spirit-mechanism, the inarticulate language of the strategists, observing men’s motion-and-stillness and penetrating their intent — without waiting for words spoken to know what is in their hearts and predict it in advance — subtle subtle to the point of formlessness, divine divine to the point of soundlessness.” The text identifies its post-Tài-gōng transmission as Sū Qín 蘇秦, Zhāng Yí 張儀, Sūn Bìn 孫臏, and the Guǐ gǔ 鬼谷 lineage; lost in the Qín book-burning; Hàn-Táng-onward only Zhūgě Liàng 諸葛亮 understood it; later figures Lǐ Wèigōng 李衛公, Yuè Wǔmù 岳武穆, Liú Qīngtián 劉青田 (Liú Bówēn) had the talent but did not know it.
Prefaces
Anonymous self-preface. “I when first reading it saw its phrasing not consonant-with-principle and its words not ordering-into-chapters, took it for absurd and discarded it. — In the wùchén autumn (戊辰秋) I saw on the bookshelf-of-a-friend with whom I was lodging — Cuōshān Zhào Péngjǔ — also this volume in his bamboo-trunk; took it out and read; with what I had had, fitted as a tally — not a single word’s-error, only the styling of year-and-month was different. Astonished I asked, and Péngjǔ and his son both rejoiced: they too were heirs of the Wǔhóu (Zhūgě Liàng) line. So I asked to test it. There was sitting a monk, his appearance robust-and-tall, his body-and-physique fat-and-fleshy. I privately said to Bīngōng [Péngjǔ’s son]: ‘how this monk is fat-and-fleshy!’ Bīngōng immediately struck a bamboo-fan once on the table; Péngjǔ laughed and said: ‘do you mean to say this monk is fat?’ At that time the privately-mutually-given-and-received words once moved, the other had already known — was that not subtle-wonderful divine-illumination, capable of reaching this? I therefore prostrated at his door and obtained the formula in full, applied for five years and at last accomplished. — Alas, also it is hard! The world has none to whom it can be transmitted, none to whom it can be spoken. I have respectfully kept this formula in waiting for a later lofty-bright man.”
The wùchén autumn would be 1628 (Tiānqǐ 8 / Chóngzhēn 1) or 1688 (Kāngxī 27); contextually most likely the early-Qīng date.
Abstract
A short Yīn-fú-class scripture in the strategic-divinatory register, attributed to Jiāng Tàigōng but actually composed in the late Míng or early Qīng. The text’s pretensions to a TàigōngSūQínZhūgěLiàngLiúBówēn lineage are conventional pseudepigraphical pedigree-claims; the actual genre is the bīngjiā shénjī 兵家神機 (“strategist’s spirit-mechanism”) military-divinatory tradition that flourished in popular print-culture from the late Míng. The anecdote in the self-preface — the monk’s-fatness exchange overheard between father-and-son to demonstrate spirit-reading — is in the standard anecdotal kǒujué (oral-formula) genre.
The text’s table-of-contents structures it under: Xíng dào zhāng 行道章, Rù dào zhāng 入道章, Yóu dào zhāng 由道章, Chū dào zhāng 出道章, Sī tiān lún fàn 司天輪範, Fēn dì xiāngmò 分地輿幕 (with various shēngkè sub-sections) — the structure replicates the orientation-and-strategic-divination tradition of the Liù tāo and adjacent military classics.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0061
- Patriarchal attribution: 姜太公 (託名).